Good Intentions
by ylib
Summary: Features Amelia and Zelgadiss together as kids. Zelgadiss becomes injured. Amelia's mother heals him, but Zelgadiss's mother never comes to get him back.


I originally wrote this as a one-shot (a long one it seems). However, my sister/editor says I should expand it to explain the history of Zel's mother. (She's pretty twisted.) I'm weighing this advice against how lazy I want to be. Please read and review (and tell me if I should continue the story).

Disclaimer: I do not own Slayers. The characters for Amelia's mother and Zelgadiss's mother are O.C.

Good Intentions

Young Zelgadiss had the terrible feeling that he was in trouble again. Reality fuzzed in and out, and a familiar nausea told him that he'd taken another blow to the head. Without opening his eyes, he took in the smooth sheets over him and the pillow under his head. The air was heavy with a dead silence like he had never heard before. There were no heavy footsteps from the tenants upstairs and no screaming arguments muffled by thin walls. The air smelled faintly of flowers. A breeze stirred from an open window somewhere, but he heard no carts or vendors on the street outside. He cautiously cracked open his eyes and stared at an unfamiliar pure white ceiling.

"_Well, at least I didn't get knocked out in some alley again. I hate those kids! I HATE them so . . ." _He clenched his teeth as a shot of pain rushed through his foggy mind. He forced himself to breath deeply, and the ache subsided slowly with his temper. He started to look around. _"Where am I?"_

A host of tiny painted eyes stared at him from every reflective tabletop. Some were gilded birds and animals, but the vast majority were porcelain dolls dressed like courtesans and arranged like army squads. The tables they formed ranks on were a deep cherry engraved with peacocks and inlaid with alabaster shells. The mauve wallpaper continued the shell theme in vertical rows with golden trim. Even the sheets were embroidered. _"Where am I indeed!"_ He smirked.

"_Who has this much wealth, and no common sense? Just one of these over-dressed dolls could feed my mother and I for a month. Or I could buy a sword."_ A shadow passed over his face as he remembered the last time his head throbbed this bad. _"I'd rather have a sword. I'm done being weak."_

He looked out of the open window at the tulips and at the garden path beyond them._"Wherever I am, it's on the ground floor."_ He sat up quickly and instantly regretted it. The floor pitched up, and his stomach jumped into his throat. He collapsed back into the pillow holding down vomit.

The tall wooden door swung silently open. A six-foot porcelain doll with raven black hair to her waist walked into the room with slow steps. The elegant woman sat lightly on the bed with no wasted motion. Her large sleepy blue eyes were calm and deep like a still pond. She leaned over and put one long soft hand on his forehead. "You look pale. Are you feeling better?" She asked in a deep clear voice.

"My head hurts . . ." He muttered into the pillow.

She chanted in slow monotone, and his head cleared. He sat up, and his head felt level. "Thank you." Zelgadiss said without meeting her eyes.

She smiled and stood with a languid grace. "I'll get you something to eat. That was a terrible accident you were in. I'm glad my healing was enough."

"Accident?" Zelgadiss had assumed he'd lost another fight.

"You can't remember?" She paused in the doorway with motherly concern.

"Accident . . ." Zelgadiss tried to remember that morning, but it wasn't clear. He was on Market Street. That was an expensive, uptown market. _"What was I doing there? Was I stealing?"_ He suddenly realized the lady was looking directly into his face. He stiffened a bit from the intense concern and attention.

"Your pupils aren't dilated . . ." She spoke half to herself and half to him. "Maybe I should stop being so proud and stubborn and get you a better healer." She glanced down at the bruises left on his exposed forearms, and Zelgadiss started to squirm.

"What is your name?" she asked.

"Zelgadiss." He answered like a student called on in class.

She nodded. She obviously already knew that and only asked to test his memory. "Where were you this morning at 11 a.m.?"

"Market Street?" Zelgadiss wasn't sure, but he thought that was the answer.

"Do you remember what happened?" Her voice was slow, but behind her deep eyes a theory was forming.

Zelgadiss bit his lip. _"Market Street? Maybe my mother wanted something from there. An accident? Who is this woman?"_ After several minutes of unanswered questions, Zelgadiss gave up. He didn't remember anything from that morning at all.

The calm woman nodded her head as if she expected as much. "It involved my carriage . . ." She looked down as if ashamed. "I'll get you something to eat." She repeated quietly and left the room.

"Carriage . . ." A memory flashed of a horse rearing up over him. Rearing up, then coming down . . He put his hand on the back of his head. It was fine, just soft brown hair like it had always been. A shudder went through him. That was close. This rich lady must be an excellent healer if she saved him. _"She saved me." _That thought felt alien, like it should be about someone else.

"_Of course, it was her damn horse in the first place wasn't it? What was I doing? I know better than to run out in front of . . ."_ He suddenly smiled wickedly. She was rich, and he was her victim. _"Oh, Mother must already be all over this. She might spend like self-absorbed witch, but she knows how to work an angle."_

He leaned against the cherry headboard and enjoyed ignoring the over-priced decadence surrounding him. _"I don't need to steal anymore." _

The elegant lady returned carrying a silver tray of food. A red blur darted back and forth behind her long violet dress.

"Hello!" A tiny voice chirped.

Zelgadiss could just see the toddler's bright blue eyes over the edge of the bed. She had dark fluffy hair and wore berry red pajamas.

"Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello! . . ." She waved her hand excitedly at the new stranger. She obviously wasn't going to stop until she got a response.

"Hello." Zelgadiss finally said.

She squealed excitedly and started running back and forth across the room in circles. The tall lady put the tray on the bed next to Zelgadiss while the toddler screamed and spun until she was dizzy.

"_It's a good thing my headache is gone, because this kid is loud."_ He watched her try to climb the curtains, and smirked a little when she fell.

"You're not hungry?" The lady asked.

"Oh! Oh, yes." Zelgadiss stopped watching the noisy ball of energy and downed a piece of toast in two bites. _"Am I hungry? This woman has no idea! Mother spent all our money on that stupid silk dress. She'd probably love the decadent decorations in this room." _He scowled at the embroidered sheets as if they were an insult to him. He kept eating the decadent food as fast as he could though. He bit into an unfamiliar piece of fruit and decided it was some kind of pear. Whatever it was, there wasn't enough of it. _"I can probably get her to bring me more."_

Then the squealing toddler jumped onto the bed with both feet. The tray bounced and fruit, soup, bread and water splattered the bed, floor, wall and Zelgadiss. The lady's elegant dress didn't get a spec on it, and she gave her excited child a stern glare.

"Amelia, no."

With those two words, little Amelia abruptly stopped jumping on the bed. She pouted for only a second then stuck out her lower lip defiantly. "I the pincess!"She announced to her frowning audience.

"No, ma'am!" Her mother scolded. "You're not being good."

Amelia pouted. She had lost again.

"Pincess?" Zelgadiss picked the soup bowl off his head and noticed the coat of arms painted on its side.

"Oh, Shit!" He covered his mouth, but it was too late. _"I just cussed in front of the crown princess."_ He looked over to see how mad she was. Crown Princess Sophie smiled like a life-size china doll.

"Can you still not remember?" That was all she said.

"Um . . ." He cautiously removed his hand from his mouth. ". . . I remember the horse . . ."

"Keep trying." Her eyes were so soft and gentle. She wasn't angry at all.

"Mama! Mama! Bad word! Bad word!" She pointed accusingly at Zelgadiss.

"Amelia, be nice." Her mother said.

The little princess looked from her mother to Zelgadiss. She was always yelled at for bad words. Why wasn't he? "No fair! No fair!" She stuck out her tongue at him, and Zelgadiss hid a laugh.

"Amelia!" Her mother said sharply. "You want to be a big girl and help Mommy?"

Amelia smiled wide and stretched her arms above her as far as they would go.

"Go get me towels, Amelia. Towels." She pointed toward the open door.

"Yes!" The happy toddler sprinted from the bed, squealing all the way. Meanwhile, Zelgadiss had picked a piece of toast and jam off the wall and started eating it.

"Oh, No!" The crown princess said still in mom-mode. "Don't eat that! It's . . ." She paused as she realized that this child had eaten much dirtier food.

"You don't want me to eat anymore, your highness?" He looked so miserable with this new royal order.

"Oh, no. . .I was just going to get you some more." She smiled warmly as she stood. She couldn't help but wonder when that guestroom was last cleaned as she walked down the corridor.

By the time Amelia ran in at full volume, all of the scattered food had been eaten. Zelgadiss was interrupted from trying to remember the morning's events when Amelia climbed onto the bed. _"Princess Sophie keeps asking me, but she seems to remember everything herself so . . ."_

"I help!" Amelia said proudly and threw a wooden box against his stomach.

"Oof! This isn't towels!" He growled. The little princess giggled and chewed on her thumb.

"Help." He scoffed. He opened the lid and a whir of gears hummed under a simple mechanical melody. Woven into the song were bird calls that sounded completely real. The music box was delicately crafted with tiny figures that should have danced on mechanical tracks. However, Amelia had been using it to collect pretty rocks from the garden. The red silk interior was muddy, and the painted figures were broken among the rocks and leaves. A light glowed on the upper lid imitating sunlight shining down through the water's surface.

"I wonder is it's mechanical, magical or both?" He smiled to himself as he considered this new puzzle. "Hey Amelia, wanna see what's inside?"

"Yes!" Amelia answered without understanding the question. She flung her hands up over her head and toppled backwards in clumsy somersault.

"So do I." Zelgadiss smiled as he ripped open the lid. Amelia began to whine in protest.

"Quiet." He snapped. She flopped down next to him and watched.

Zelgadiss pulled out several well-balanced gears. "Look, princess." He spun them like tops on the silver serving tray. Amelia was delighted. She never knew there were toys inside her toys.

"More! More!" She shouted. Then she saw the iridescent clear oil that made the internal mechanics slick with rainbows. "BOOTFULL! For me! For me!" She jumped onto Zelgadiss's lap, and he held the box out of reach. "NOOO!" She wailed.

"Alright, Calm down." He poured some oil onto the tray, and she immediately started to splash in it. She fingerpainted her face and the gears with the clear rainbows. She tried fingerpainting Zelgadiss, but a stern "No!" stopped her. She happily wandered off to beautify the walls.

Zelgadiss was trying to concentrate. The oil for the mechanical parts flowed through the clear compartment in the lid to create the water-surface effect. However, he still couldn't identify the light source. He took apart the mechanical figures and automatically gave the heads to the curious princess to keep her busy. She found they did not spin as well as the tops, but decided to dunk them in oil anyway. Then she started to throw them.

At the base of the box was a smooth red stone held in a clasp with copper wires radiating out from it. "Must be mechanical powered by magic . . ." Zelgadiss wondered aloud. He ran a finger over the smooth oval stone and felt a throb of power. He placed his palm over it. "Lighting." A bright ball of light hovered above the bed.

The oily toddler screamed excitedly, and jumped up trying to reach it. "For me! For me!" Her fingertips fell an inch short of the brilliant new light. Zelgadiss smile and lowered it within her reach. Amelia's excited smile became shock when her hands passed straight through the ball of light. She stared and pointed at it. "My ball?" She asked Zelgadiss.

"It's only light, princess. You can't hold it like that. Still, it's easily the strongest lighting spell I've ever cast." He started to examine the stone's clasp.

"Yes!" Amelia chirped and started jumping on the bed.

"This stone is a small magical power source, or an amplifier." Zelgadiss tried to remember some of the books he'd borrowed from the old man upstairs. He'd read almost all of them, but only a handful were about magic.

Amelia flopped down next to him and gave him a hug. "Yes!" She said in response to nothing.

He smiled. "Can I have this stone, princess?"

"Yes!" She said happily.

"I thought you'd say that."He felt his shirt becoming damp under her arms and noticed she was soaked with oil. Then he finally looked around the room, and his jaw dropped. Fragments of musicbox were scattered all over the room. The porcelain dolls had been undressed, covered in shimmering oil and piled on the floor. Oil had soaked into the bed. Iridescent handprints were smeared along the walls as high as the princess could reach. Amelia herself was slimy, and she wore a curtain for a cape. "And I'm still soaked with soup." He muttered. He looked at the open window and considered running.

Then the large wooden door swung silently open, and the tall queen walked in with a second tray of food. Her eyes widened. "All this in only fifteen minutes."

"Hello!" Amelia waved happily. "Mama look!" She drenched her hands in oil from the tray and spiked her hair straight up with two fists.

"Yes." Princess Sophie tried to smile. "You're getting a B-A-T-H after this."

Zelgadiss sat still and quiet on the bed and stared at the floor. His eyes seemed haunted.

"Food, my little princess." She smiled and put the tray on the floor. It was less likely to fly from there. Amelia climbed off the bed and eagerly started eating.

With her little tornado occupied, Sophie walked slowly over to Zelgadiss. He tensed up when her shadow fell over him, so she decided to sit just outside her arm's reach. "You know," she said lightly, "The advantage of being crown princess is someone else gets to clean this up."

Zelgadiss didn't respond. She moved a little closer, and he balled up. He hid his face behind his bent knees and wrapped his arms over his head. Then he was still again, like he was waiting.

"It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you." She gently touched his arm, and a shudder went through him. "It's alright." She gazed sadly at the bruises across his biceps. Experimentally, she lined up her fingers around his arm until the bruises were perfectly covered. Zelgadiss recognized the grasp, but no the gentle touch. He uncurled enough to look her in the eye, and the lady's warm sympathy nearly made him sick.

"_She knows. She could have healed those bruises if she wanted. She knows, and I'm never supposed to tell. I don't want to tell." _Zelgadiss brushed her off his arm and promptly uncurled.

"I feel better now." He said flushing red with embarrassment. "Thank you for healing me. I feel better, and I want to go home." He started looking for his shoes under the bed.

"AAAAHH!" Amelia jumped out from under the bed, and Zelgadiss just managed to hold down a scream.

"Why you little . . ." He muttered.

She giggled and slammed the broken musicbox into the same spot in his stomach as the first time. Inside was an oily apple that Amelia had generously only taken a few bites of.

"Thank you." Zelgadiss's words oozed sarcasm, but it was lost on little Amelia. He turned back to her mother with an angry little smirk. "Where are my shoes, your highness?"

The crown princess sighed..

"Your highness?" Zelgadiss didn't like her hesitation.

"Zelgadiss, you can't go home."

The low-class urchin had the nerve to glare coldly at the crown princess. "Why not? I want to go home. I don't belong here! WHERE"S MY MOM?!" He caught himself. He was yelling at the most powerful woman in Saillune. He couldn't leave if she forbid it. The large bedroom became a cage.

Amelia didn't understand the conversation, but they looked too serious. She garbled in baby-talk and whacked the musicbox a couple times. She wanted him to play. She yanked on his arm over and over until Zelgadiss began to quietly move.

Zelgadiss mechanically wiped the oily apple on a dry patch of his shirt sleeve and took a bite. He started pealing back the wires that held the red stone while his mind tried to untangle the situation. _"_Your highness . . ." He heard his voice shake and paused to steady it. "If I was so badly hurt, why isn't my mother here?"

"She didn't come."

"_Was she not at the accident?"_ An image flashed of her smiling in a horrified crowd. He continued pulling up wire after wire until there was nothing left for his hands to do. Amelia admired the talisman he held in his hands

"Bootful? She asked softly. She didn't understand the weight in the air, but she could still feel it.

"She left me, didn't she?" He closed his hand around the stone and chuckled darkly. "No, this is Sylvia Greywers we're talking about. She sold me, didn't she?"

Crown princess Sophie looked away like she wanted to escape this conversation.

"Answer me! Did she sell me to you?!"

"Yes." The queen said softly to his screaming question. "It's as you say."

Zelgadiss could only stare. Somehow it felt different when it was all just awful theories in his head. "I've been abandoned." He said under his breath. A deep dark pit opened in his chest as that fact sank in. He ran towards the window and the tall woman caught him in her arms. She held him off the ground as unmovable as a marble statue.

"NO!" He kicked and struggled. "I DO NOT BELONG TO YOU! I WANNA GO HOME!"

"Child, listen to me . . .OW! NO BITING!"Sophie set her teeth as Zelgadiss ripped into her arm. Amelia started laughing.

"BAD!" Sophie shrieked at the little princess. She readjusted her grip and wound up squeezing her hand over the bruises on his arm. Then he remembered how he got those bruises.

"NO! Please . . .Mother!" Zelgadiss's mother dragged him down Market Street with a crushing grip on his arm. She was a tall, lanky woman with a wild, icy stare. Her long dark hair was arranged with silver combs, but the crying child wore stained and ripped cloths. People stared and whispered, but no one interfered.

"Enough!" She growled at him. "You're making a scene. I am done with you! I have no attachments. Not to you, not to anyone! I suffered your constant needs long enough."

"But . . . I've done everything you've ever asked. I work. I beg. I steal. What do you want?!" He would do it for her if Sylvia would just stop looking at him like that.

"I want you to be quiet." She stared through him with wide, unstable eyes. "You have no reason to complain. You can work, beg and steal for yourself. You don't need a mother anymore."

"But I don't want . . ." He started to cry loudly.

"I said be quiet!" She couldn't stand to watch him cry anymore. It was causing a pain in her chest. She stopped looking at him, and doubled her stride. Zelgadiss had to jog to keep up. "It's fine. I'll sell you to decent owner." They stopped in a crowd as the streets were cleared for the royal carriage.

"You're really going to do it this time, aren't you?" Zelgadiss shook from either fear or rage. He didn't know, maybe both.

"Why do you think I dragged you down to Market Street? I said I was done with you! There's no reason to just leave you if I can make a profit." He kicked her shin. He didn't have any plan. He wasn't reasoning at all. When her hand released he dashed through the crowd and into the street.

The horse reared up over him. Reared up and came down . . .IT HURT! Oh god, it never hurt like this! He could see his own blood running out from him. Running in the channels between the cobblestones. People screamed and stared at him with horrified eyes, and he was so afraid. The crowd rushed toward him in a panic to do something but not knowing what. Behind them, his mother smiled victoriously with burning yet icy eyes. "Perfect."

"I demand compensation! Compensation for my son!" She pointed at the carriage with a laugh that bordered on crazy. Then the crowd eclipsed her, but their faces were a blur. His vision went gray and the voices rushed into his ears all at once. "It's O.K. It's O.K. It's going to be O.K!" "I don't know what to do." "NO!" "Mommy!" "Take that child away!" "You're going to be alright little boy. Sampson, pay her off. He belongs to me now." Then even the voices faded to black.

Zelgadiss had been motionless in Sophie's arms for a few minutes. "No, that's not true." He couldn't believe his own lie and started to cry. The calm lady shifted her arms from restraining to embracing. Zelgadiss wrapped his arms around her neck and sobbed into her shoulder.

Sophie started to rock on her feet out of habit. "It's alright. You're safe now." She felt a tug on her dress.

"Up! Up!" Amelia said jealously.

"Not being good!" The crown princess snapped. "Towels!"

Amelia pouted and stomped out of the room. She first brought back a white teddy bear and tried to give it to Zelgadiss. He didn't even notice, so she ripped off the head and started to pull the stuffing out herself.

"Amelia!" Her mother said sternly. Then Sophie returned to comforting the crying boy.

The little princess sulked and looked from her mother to Zelgadiss. Apparently, ripping open toys was something else that he could do and she couldn't. "No fair." She whined softly as she slunk out of the room.

She came back with a string of blue beads. Her mother sat on the bed now. Zelgadiss was much quieter, but he still clung to her with his face hidden against her body.

"Mama?" She held out the beads to her with hopeful eyes.

Princess Sophie sighed and graciously wrapped the necklace around her wrist. "They're very pretty Amelia." She said gently. "But stay out of Mommy's jewelry box."

"Up?" The little princess held out her arms.

"Not now, sweetie." She said and Zelgadiss sat up in Sophie's lap.

"I'm alright now. Sorry about . . . all of this." He sat down on the floor next to her feet and leaned up against the bed. His ears hurt from holding back tears, and his eyes burned from when he couldn't.

Amelia climbed into her mother's empty lap and shot a possessive look at Zelgadiss. "My mama!"The toddler wrapped her arms around her mother's waist.

"Yes, yours." Zelgadiss agreed. He stared vacantly out of the window.

With that business settled, the toddler gathered some of her favorite rocks from the musicbox. She flopped down across from Zelgadiss obstructing his view of the garden outside.

"It's red one." She announced as she placed a rock on the floor for his inspection. "An blue one." She neatly formed a row. She didn't know the word for brown, and gurbled something in baby-talk for the next three.

Zelgadiss watched her in a daze. He felt too exhausted to have any opinion on rocks, or mothers. It seemed he could disconnect and dissipate through the window as a trail of smoke. "What happens now?"

The question wasn't directed at anyone, but Sophie answered. "I bought you because it was the simplest solution. But I never intended to own you."

He smirked at that contradiction. "So I'm free to go?"

"Do you have any family other than your mother?"

"Family?" He repeated in a disinterested voice. "Mother had me when she was very young, then she ran away. I don't remember that much."

"Oh" The crown princess fidgeted uncomfortably while she gathered her nerve for the next suggestion. "If you really don't have anywhere to go, we could use more help in the kitchen."

As she expected, Zelgadiss shook his head. "I'm no one's slave."

He thought of all the odd jobs, haggling, begging, and thieving he had done for Sylvia. He could live on the street, no problem. He could also try to go back to her. _"And be sold again."_ Then he remembered back when his mother was trying to live on only her youth and a desperate smile. She would tell her wealthy lover, when she thought Zelgadiss was asleep, that she was descended from the red priest. "Actually, I think I have a grandfather . . ."


End file.
